Don't know whether you follow the censorware trades news, but you may be interested to know WebSense completed their purchase of SurfControl earlier this month. Apropos to your blog entry, most of the development work formerly the responsibility of US and UK teams will supposedly be done at a new office in Beijing.

Lest the thrill of schadenfreude overcome you, I hasten to point out that those of us made fabulously wealthy by oppressing untold millions of high school students trying to fuck around on myspace have quickly found new jobs. WebSense offered us pretty crappy temporary or relocated positions which nobody seems to have accepted.

In job interviews I always used the term 'censorware' to describe my former job. When that drew blank stares I would add "you know, porn filtering".

I had seen the buyout news in general, but not the offshoring aspect. That's ironic, a sort of what goes around, comes around.

Those made fabulously wealthy were not the grunt programmers, but the executives who got the stock options during the bubble. I don't wish random censorware company employees ill. And did you ever hear my joke that the amount of effort I put into censorware-fighting could have fueled an IPO? Nowadays, I deeply regret I didn't take that path.

Well we're all getting respectable jobs now, at any rate. For example, I was hired to pull the fingernails out of detainees at Camp X-ray. I never really thought you had any hard feelings for us -- except maybe the lobbyists forcing our crapware on librarians.

I have of course come across your rueful statements to the effect that the opportunity costs of fighting the good fight were too great. Like you really need a third masarati.

For the record, I didn't get rich in the net.bubble. I don't even have a car.